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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180177">Only You Can See Me (Never Let Me Go)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_dorkula/pseuds/lady_dorkula'>lady_dorkula</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Batjokes, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Dissociation, Feelings, Introspection, M/M, POV Joker (DCU), Self-Destructive Tendencies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:14:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,383</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_dorkula/pseuds/lady_dorkula</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He's the antidote to his poison. The one who moves through darkness yet showers him with cleansing heavenly light. Who reaches out to catch him before the eternal flames below swallow him forever. A revelation. If he's to believe in a higher power, it will be <em>him</em>. (A Joker POV piece)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Only You Can See Me (Never Let Me Go)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The view’s not so bad from up here. </p>
<p>He sees the city, but does it see him? Does it see him when it’s not ablaze? When its people are safe from the horror and suffering that he’s capable of inflicting? When the streets don’t run red with blood? Is that the only way to get its attention? His attention?</p>
<p>His mind settles in the aftermath as he sits on the ledge of a roof, perched atop one among many just as unremarkable tall buildings in Downtown Gotham – the latest scene of an arena fight of cosmic proportions, a clash of titans larger than life, or so he likes to think. Which in a way makes this building remarkable in its arbitrary importance. It was as good a place as any, he supposed.</p>
<p>The light pollution of the city scares the faraway stars as they hide behind the great dark shroud of endless, infinite space. Only the moon is brave enough to stick around and witness the senseless confrontations of mankind from the safety of its orbit. Close enough to remind people there are things in the universe larger than their insignificant problems and petty wars, but far enough not to be tainted by them. A beauty outside of reach, it doesn’t have any other choice but to remain wisely aloof. Its white veil spreads across the earth, but it dares not touch the land made of metal and concrete, overpowered by streetlights; by bright and flashy neon billboards along boulevards still bustling with the thrill seekers and the wicked; by the apartment lights of insomniacs resigned to spend the few precious hours of allotted sleep time awake before they have to get back to the grind and start the back-breaking cycle all over again come morning.</p>
<p>The city doesn’t sleep. And neither do they.</p>
<p>His feet dangle over the edge. Everything seems so small and insignificant from up here. Miniature people scurry about like ants, cars like children’s toys race through the midnight streets, leaving trails of white, yellow and red lights in their wake, playing out like a time-lapse sequence that burns into his eyes. The whole city is a playground, a big sandbox. His feet kick around the feeble castles that these small people made, they sink into the glittering roads that lead to nowhere of importance until his shoes fill up with the irritating sand. There’s always that tiny little jagged stone stuck in his shoe that he can’t shake off afterwards, it digs into his heel with every step, but he’s so used to the sensation that at this point the nuisance has become the norm. He’d rather feel the discomfort than not feel anything at all. So the discomfort becomes comfort. The pain reminds him he’s still alive, and if he hurts, then he’s still feeling. And maybe, just maybe, he’s still human too. There’s a vestige of humanity left tucked somewhere deep inside, beyond the hazy fog of nothingness that clouds his mind and imprisons his heart. </p>
<p>It’s a good thing his heart doesn’t belong to him anymore. Then again, it hasn’t belonged to him in a very long time. <em>He</em> keeps it beating. Only him. Although, he’s not sure if it’s a punishment or a mercy.</p>
<p>No, he knows it’s more than that. It’s everything!</p>
<p>His gaze is transfixed as he stares into the distance at nothing in particular. Blood drips from the tip of his nose and falls on his thigh, soaking through the expensive fabric of his pants. The wet spot cools the skin underneath, but the sensation registers somewhere in the back of his mind, barely perceptible or worthy of acknowledgement. The million lights of the stretching city before him blend together to form patterns, both haphazard and meaningful, not unlike the lines of a palm. The blinking eyes of this mythical creature are ever-changing and yet somehow they are a constant come night. Staring into them is like watching a fireworks show in slow motion as they flare, spread and burst throughout the city. It’s almost as if all the stars have fallen from the night sky and landed down here, in this city of all places. </p>
<p>Dazzling and flashy. Gotham is most beautiful at night. </p>
<p>Another drop of blood saturates the royal purple of his pants. The pain of his broken nose is soothing, and he clings to it like a lifeline, something to replace the awful numbness he feels most of the time, like he’s dead but somehow still alive despite all odds, doomed to nothingness, on the threshold between worlds. He doesn’t fit or belong in either one so he exists in the middle - neither here, nor there, and nothing would change that no matter how much he lashes or tries to claw his way to one or the other side. His fingers are caked in dirt and blood from digging through the worm-infested bodies that stand in his way. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth as he stares at the stains on his bony hands. Red <em>is</em> a good color on him. </p>
<p>He’s lucky he has a guardian angel to watch over him. Or the cruelest devil to torture him. He needs it, regardless - it’s the only time he doesn’t feel utterly alone in this liminal state of existing. After all is said and done, they are not so different. But how long can they keep this up? It’s bound to come to an end sooner or later, with either one of them killing the other, and the fun will be over then. Not that he thinks this far ahead but the thought of being all alone in a world without his knight in not-so-shining armor plants the seed of fear in his already erratic and irrational mind.</p>
<p>Shakily, he reaches for his gun and holds it in both hands, contemplating. The heavy steel feels warm in his palms, warmer than his own bare hands exposed to the bone-chilling winds coming from the Atlantic. He empties the cylinder of the few remaining bullets, leaving all but one inside. The cylinder clicks when he snaps it closed and gives it a spin, carelessly tossing the rest of the bullets down on the street below.</p>
<p>He presses the warm muzzle under his bloody chin and it almost feels like a kiss goodbye, offering one final comfort to an irredeemable and unrepentant sinner bound for hell. His eyes close but he still sees the lights of the city burning through his eyelids, refusing to be ignored. Always there. To witness him rise and fall, his beginning and end, watching with indifference. His hair flows in the wind, disorderly and wild. Free. A drop of crimson lands on his fingers as he pulls back the hammer, but the red only mixes with the drying blood that was already there, refreshing the lovely shades of death on his hands, adding more stains that will never wash away.</p>
<p>He was not afraid to die, oh no. Living like this, on the other hand…Maybe then the incessant buzzing will finally stop. That is, if fate takes the bait this time around and finishes the job his darling couldn’t.</p>
<p>Russian roulette was always his favorite game to play, anyways. Might as well go out with a bang, if he's lucky.</p>
<p>A hand, as sure as the moon at night and as warm as the sun in the sky, closes over his own icy hand, makes him falter, hesitate. The same hand that broke him, the same hand that caressed him when he forgot what love felt like. An instrument of destruction and creation that undoes him and then puts the pieces back together. It never leaves him alone or gives up on him. It stops him. It stops him from pulling the trigger.</p>
<p>He smiles as a tear rolls down his cheek. He didn’t know he was clutching the grip of his revolver so tightly until he felt the warmth melting the ice down, the unbridled nuclear power contained in this single touch, the infinite kindness that he was unworthy of but would selfishly bask in for as long as he could. A silent reminder. An anchor. </p>
<p>He loosens his grip and passes his judgement onto the hands of his perpetual savior.</p>
<p>Before he knows it, the nail scratches on the board, the cacophony of a dozen TV channels turned on full blast, the maddening sounds of a vinyl record stuttering as the needle catches on the same grooves over and over again to no end, all the noises that tear at his brain and all but rupture his eardrums until they bleed, it all dies down. Drown out by a slow, soothing tune that starts playing in their stead, deep in the back of his mind, that grows louder and louder, enough to fill his head with blissful music. And he feels like swaying, dancing, moving to the sound of it all. His very soul does little spins and whirls inside him, it sings to the music, it beckons its partner to join in. It beats and shakes and rocks, antsy, trying to escape its confines, to fly free and dance in the sky, on the rooftop, under the invisible stars, in the million shimmering eyes of Gotham as their witness.</p>
<p>Determined, he stands up from the ledge, and takes the strong but gentle hand that pulled him from the edge. His dark knight follows without question, perhaps sensing the overjoyed twists and turns of his soul, the silent celebration of life that rages inside him now, on the verge of eruption. They stand close, face to face near the edge of the roof, conversing with just a gaze as their souls connect and entangle, filling each other’s void without uttering a single word or sound, just the exchange of deep breaths, hot smoke in the cold air. </p>
<p>A hand wraps around his waist, pulls him even closer, warms his frozen body up, makes his pitch black heart skip a beat and his breath catch. His own blood-stained hand finds its way underneath the cape until it rests on the strong shoulder of his nightly lover. Their fingers entwine and his feet start moving without a second thought, nothing more than muscle memory, some may say. A step, two, three, slowly and in perfect sync with each other to a private melody that only they can hear. To the heartbeat of the city at night. To the song they instinctively know, the one they learned how to dance to together. They’ve stepped on each other’s toes so many times over the years until they finally found the right rhythm and pace, no longer fumbling or holding back, but gracefully gliding across the surface, across alleys and rooftops, shadows and spotlights. It’s second nature to them now. </p>
<p>And he can’t for the life of him look away. Just like gravity, the intense gaze and touch pull him in and he’s powerless to resist it. Like an asteroid burning up as it enters his atmosphere just to get closer even if it means the end of him, breaking apart and landing in pieces on his surface just to be a part of him. Shining brighter than the sun as he comes crashing down in his open arms. Perhaps it’s not the end but the beginning, and something beautiful will spring out from the impact. He can feel it.</p>
<p>He sways, almost afraid to close his eyes even for a moment. What if all this is just an illusion? A pretty lie to mask the ugly truth? A figment of his cruel imagination? His grip tightens until his knuckles hurt and his hands start shaking, giving away his desperate need for affirmation, like a wordless plea for help or some sort of sign. He lets out the breath he’s been holding without realizing when he feels the firm squeeze he gets in return, reassuring and grounding. They’re as real as they can be, here and now, and that’s the sweetest relief of certainty. </p>
<p>But just to make sure…</p>
<p>Like a brazen thief, he steals a breath, a kiss, a bite, a sip of his lover’s blood. But perhaps the biggest crime of all was stealing his lover’s heart. But can all of them be really stolen if they are offered to him willingly instead? He takes it all, the Body and the Blood in Holy Communion, in this sacrament of love, faith and complete devotion.</p>
<p>His cheek burns at the touch of his sweet caresses, a brush with cleansing fire, like a thousand needles sinking deep in his cold pale skin. He whimpers when the fingers card through his hair and tighten their hold, keeping him there, in place, as if he is not the only one worried this might be nothing but a sweet dream. He never wants these hands to stop touching him, or for these lips to stop devouring him, reminding him he’s real. Incoherent chants of appreciation and keens of desperation leave his lips in between urgent and deep kisses, and gasps for air. But the truth is, his lover is the only air he’ll ever need to breathe. He’s the drug he can’t quit, the one he always craves, the one that might just kill him in the blink of an eye with the potency of its love, or painfully slow with its unyielding consistency of torturous pleasure. The rush is intoxicating, overwhelming, addicting. He’s on the brink of an overdose.</p>
<p>“I love you.” </p>
<p>Almost a whisper, his voice breaks under the unbearable weight of emotion sitting on his chest, threatening to crush and pierce his lungs with his own ribs. The heart pounds, ready to burst into stars to replace the ones missing from the sky above them.</p>
<p>He cries as soft lips press against his temple, as hot breath caresses his hair, as tender arms wrap the long cape around his worn body, shielding him from the harsh cold outside, welcoming him inside the shell he’s tried so hard to break more times than he can count, while all he had to do, instead, was break his own.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gotham watches with its million sparkling eyes, yet it sees nothing at all. Not the things that truly matter.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I may or may not have been possessed while writing this. Listening to Hozier, Lana Del Rey and Florence + the Machine on repeat does this to a person, so it goes without saying their music inspired this piece. In many ways it's quite the departure from my previous work, but I felt this thing in my bones, my dudes!! Now, if only I can let my angels out to play too every once in a while, that would be real nice. Who else would keep all my demons in check otherwise?<br/>Anywho! *awkward laughter* I hope this was overall an enjoyable read. If you feel like scribbling a few words in the comments, I would certainly not mind reading them! Not at all!! 💚</p></blockquote></div></div>
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